An article has just been published in Paranormal Underground and is a Special Report on Tulpas by Ian White. The article will be circulated in print as well.

Thanks to the gracious courtesy of Cheryl Knight [the magazine's Editor] the article is now available free to Tulpa.info members (it usually costs $4.95 to download). My personal thanks to the Author [Ian White] who waived his normal royalties on the article so that it could be freely available. (Ian has also recently published a book Witchcraft & Black Magic in British Cult Cinema.)

Quote:Chupi from tulpa.info gave me this overview, not just of what a tulpa is, but how it can impose itself upon its creator: “A tulpa is an independent being, perceived in the mind’s eye only — at least at first. Some learn to see their tulpa(s) in the real world, appearing as real as everything else. They still cannot truly affect physical objects or other people, though with some trickery they can appear to and have the experience of doing so by manipulating an illusory copy of that thing.

“Most of this [tulpa.info] community takes a scientific, psychological view of tulpas. We see them as tied to us since they reside in our brains, and the only way they can affect the outside world is through our own bodies (or maybe in the future through a brain-computer interface of some sort). Some of us choose to let our tulpas do and experience things through our bodies. We use the terms ‘possession’ and ‘switching’ to describe this.

“For possession, the tulpa is allowed to control either all or part of the host’s body. It is usually done with explicit permission and feels basically like part or all of you is moving on its own. There is also often a feeling of their presence in the body when they’re possessing, though when they do it, it doesn’t feel creepy. It is similar to the difference between hearing footsteps in the other room when you’re alone in your house versus when you have a friend over — one is a cause for alarm, the other (the tulpa) is someone you know just doing their thing.

“Switching is similar to possession, but the host dissociates him/herself from the body, either with or without help from the tulpa. At this point, the tulpa is in control of the body and the host has either gone to the mindscape or been imposed outside the body in an illusory form.

“It’s called ‘switching’ because the host lives basically how a tulpa normally lives, while the tulpa is the only one in the body, as is the usual case for a normal person. This is usually done for fairly short periods, but it gets a lot easier with practice. There are some who can switch in a second.”

There are a few inaccuracies. "Tulpa" is not Sanskrit. The Sanskrit equivalent sounds completely different: nirmita. Magic and Mysticism in Tibet is by J. Herbie Brennan, not Alexandra David-Neel. I believe that the book to which Ian White is trying to refer has been published both as With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet and Magic and Mystery in Tibet. Mr. White seems to have combined the two titles into a third, which just so happens to be an actual book as well.

[Fair warning, I'm writing from an emotionally-attached mindset for once, usually I don't care so much. So this might be a bit brash.]

I loved what Chupi had to say, and generally information from people at tulpa.info seemed alright. But there was some pretty disgusting fear-mongering (I will call it that), with all the "don't mess with these entities" and that so called Tibetan lama losing control of her tulpa and it turning evil.

Don't tell people tulpas are uncontrollable and potentially dangerous. That makes things worse - now they believe it, and you've made it true through that belief. They are exactly what you believe they are, capable what you believe they're capable of, no exceptions. If you believe you DON'T know what they're capable of, then guess what happens? Exactly what you think might.

I'm honestly starting to think my tulpas are a rarity, being completely logical and aware of what they are. People are only calling tulpamancy "scientific", and then going right back to believing whatever they feel like. It shouldn't take a certified psychologist to explain why all of these negative experiences people have were the fault of their own thinking. (In fact I've never taken any class related to that subject - I'm just a healthy skeptic by nature, and I strive to understand ~everything important to me.)

The only good thing about that "don't make a tulpa" stuff is that it might keep the less open-minded people from doing so. Certainly if I'd read this article, I would've started researching and making one immediately, because I naturally don't accept others' limiting negative beliefs. Chupi would've been my inspiration in fact, as someone who didn't believe tulpas were inherently uncontrollable.

I don't know what/why I'm writing anymore. It just bugged me that they were promoting negative beliefs and I had to vent, sorry.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.
Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.
My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us stuff.

It bugged me a bit too, but the magazine is called "Paranormal Underground", so I expected them to take a more paranormal stance. And if you want to talk about tulpas before the 21st century, you absolutely cannot do it without bringing up Alexandra David-Neel, who lost control of her tulpa.

Personally, I think this is a good thing because Chupi's viewpoint and the name of our community are out there. And I wanted to make a tulpa for nearly ten years without any positive reinforcement like that. Most of the time I was reading about it, there was the story of Alexandra David-Neel, then the creepypasta and the Italian horror film, and I still wanted it.

So I think that this article is putting us out there some more, and that the people who are really ready to take this seriously will not be put off.